Three-dimensional (3D) video and image technology is becoming nearly ubiquitous, and this trend shows no sign of ending. A user is made to visually experience a 3D stereoscopic image through an operation that exposes left viewpoint image data to the left eye, and right viewpoint image data to the right eye. The presence of binocular disparity makes it so that a user can perceive or recognize an object that appears to realistically jump out from a viewing screen, or to enter the screen and move away in the distance.
Although there have been many developments in providing a visual 3D experience, audio has also seen many remarkable advances, too. Audiophiles and everyday users are both very interested in a full listening experience that includes sound and, in particular, 3D stereophonic sound. In stereophonic sound technology, a plurality of speakers are placed around a user so that the user may experience sound localization at different locations and thus experience sound in varying sound perspectives. What is needed now, however, is a way to enhance a user's 3D video/image experience with stereophonic sound that is in concert with the action being viewed. In the conventional user experience, though, an image object that is to be perceived as leaping out of the screen so as to approach the user (or is to be perceived as entering the screen so as to become more distant from the user) is not efficiently or effectively matched by a suitable, corresponding, stereophonic audio sound effect.